World Food Programme SCOPE In Five Minutes What is SCOPE? Existing beneficiary information from cooperating partners, UN or the government can be used by SCOPE, SCOPE is WFP’s digital beneficiary and transfer subject to data sharing and protection agreements. If management platform that supports the WFP programme appropriate, beneficiary information can be enhanced in intervention cycle from beginning to end. It is a SCOPE with supplementary data like photos, fingerprints cloud-based solution used for beneficiary registration, or government id card references. Source information can intervention setup, distribution planning, entitlement come from paper lists, excel files or technically imported transfers and distribution reporting. SCOPE currently from our partner’s solutions. Updated information can be supports all WFP transfer modalities be it in-kind or shared back to the partner. cash-based transfers (CBT ), for a variety of project activities. The digital platform can be used in many ways Personal data protection and privacy are extremely important when managing beneficiary information. depending on the specific needs of the country and the SCOPE is hosted on WFP’s private cloud to ensure the type of delivery mechanism required. data is safe in accordance with UN information security Beneficiary Information Management standards, with access limited by appropriate controls. SCOPE is the central repository for WFP beneficiary Supporting Interventions and Distributions identity information. Registrations powered by SCOPE SCOPE is a single place to manage all interventions can be customized to meet the needs of a particular simultaneously for a country. Once beneficiaries are intervention. Specific targeting criteria, anthropometric registered, individuals or households are enrolled in one data, languages, locations and biometric data such as or more interventions, and included in the relevant photos or fingerprints can be captured. distribution lists. Distributed entitlements can be Registrations, typically done by WFP’s cooperating specified in terms of cash value, commodity value or partners, are conducted using inexpensive laptops in the commodity quantity. These entitlements can either be field in offline mode, and synced to the platform through uniformly fixed for all beneficiaries in the distribution, or the Internet at a later time. Alternatively, for online can vary for each beneficiary according to criteria locations, registrations can be made directly in SCOPE. established for the intervention. World Food Programme SCOPE In Five Minutes A variety of project activities are currently powered by SCOPE, such as Nutritional Interventions, Food Assistance for Assets, Food for Training and General Food Distributions, among others. Depending on needs, targeting criteria can be used to determine intervention eligibility. Locations and other information captured can also help identify target groups to include in an intervention. Compliance with WFP’s internal controls, segregation of duties and standard operating procedures following the standard CBT Business Process Model are enabled by SCOPE. Managing and Monitoring Transfers SCOPE was originally created to be the WFP system for cash operations. Since then, it has evolved into a digital platform that now applies to both cash-based and inkind interventions. Cash Cash distributions typically rely on financial service providers (FSP) such as micro-finance institutions, banks or remittance agents. SCOPE-based distributions automate the generation and transmission of payment instructions to the FSP, who then distributes the cash directly to beneficiaries, either directly or by making it available to them through bank accounts. FSPs provide actual distribution information back to SCOPE, enabling managers to compare between planned and actual distributions. SCOPE supports transfers using beneficiary bank accounts and cash-in-transit mechanisms. Digital Cash Cash distributions through digital means are made via card or mobile mechanisms. SCOPE creates digital entitlement instructions based on distribution lists to the service providers, and retrieves redemption transaction activity from the service provider. SCOPE’s flexible architecture allows it to support multiple mobile and card-based services, giving a range of options to allow countries to use what fits in their context, and allows for specification of restricted or un-restricted cash modes. Given the environments where WFP’s beneficiaries are located, commercial service coverage is sometimes not available. In this case, SCOPE can be complemented by SCOPECARD, WFP’s digital card service. With SCOPECARD, WFP issues smartcards to beneficiaries for use in WFP-registered agents or retailers. These agents or retailers use a point-of-service (POS) terminal customized by WFP to enable redemptions even without connectivity. Beneficiaries use the cards to obtain assistance or commodities according to their need, going once or more times during the distribution period. Beneficiary identities are verified during redemption through security measures such as fingerprints or pin, ensuring that targeted beneficiaries are the ones collecting assistance. The POS connects to SCOPE on a cellular data link from time to time so that beneficiary activity is integrated into SCOPE, allowing WFP to monitor the distribution, reconcile and settle outstanding agent or retailer charges. SCOPECARD supports all types of assistance, including cash value, food and non-food items. In kind In-kind interventions typically rely on cooperating partners to perform food distribution to beneficiaries. SCOPE supports in-kind distribution through a WFP SCOPE Household Card or SCOPECARD provided to beneficiaries. WFP SCOPE Household Cards contain barcodes cooperating partners scan at final distribution points. This information, when synchronized back to SCOPE, allows WFP to track participation of beneficiaries in the intervention, and monitor the availability level of commodities in the hands of cooperating partners. SCOPE Services SCOPE has enabled WFP countries to complement general food distribution with digital cash or other appropriate delivery mechanisms by providing an automated tool for beneficiary and transfer management available, and being flexible enough to adapt to multiple interventions. As each country has specific needs, each operation relies on country and regional IT experts to provide technical backstopping within the country. The IT Division however has made a dedicated SCOPE team available providing technical advisory and project design services to help countries conceptualize and plan the transition of their CBT and in-kind operations from manual to digital, to augment local and regional IT capacities in case of need. Implementation support services, end-user training, retailer training, cooperating partner training and beneficiary training, and communications support services are provided by the team. For more information: [email protected] June 2015
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